Hi Misha.
I'm a 24 years old girl from Casablanca, and a few weeks ago I watched your larry king interview. In it, you said something that had a huge impact on me. I remember crying and I'm not a sensitive person at all. You talked about how a 100 dollars given by a woman to your mom helped you all on Christmas when you were young and how to this day you remember that act of kindness and it makes thrive to help people.

I had a difficult time growing up. Life is hard for me. But when you said that.. it reminded me of the help I received growing up. No matter how unsignificant it may seem now. Growing up I was very generous with my time and money. .now I'm not.. and it shames me.
So your words hit something inside and made me rethink my choices and life.

I'm in the process of becoming a better person and I thank you for it.

Guess I should ask a question as it's an AMA : Has GISHWHES affected you as a person in any way? And do you think that GISHWHES will still be here in 10 or 20 years and with you still in it?

Thanks for sharing that story. I have several stories from my childhood (which was both full of love and full of difficulty), in which my family relied on the generosity of strangers to get through hard times. A mom of a classmate game my mom $100 to buy us Christmas Presents, someone stopped when we were camped on the side of the road and put us up in a motel for the night and gave us a gift-certificate to a restaurant. I remember these things like they happened yesterday. They stuck with me. It's my hope that Random Acts run by the amazing Cinde Monsam and an incredible team of volunteers can help perpetrate those kinds of acts in peoples lives. It's not just the act itself that matters, i think, but the ripple effect that the act has. The woman who gave my mom $100 probably wasn't thinking that 35 years later, i would still be talking about it, thinking about it and urging others to do similar things.

And yes. i certainly hope that GISHWHES or something like it is around for many years to come. I think it's a great device for getting people out of their shells, getting them creatively engaged with strangers and getting them to notice people who might need some help in their communities. Oh, and it's a lot of fun and makes me laugh.

Personally, the biggest influence Random Acts (and by extension, GISHWHES) has had on me is that I generally devote a lot of my volunteer work to these concrete societal ideals, but Random Acts has taught me that everyday happiness and spreading kindness and generosity can have a truly astounding effect on the population. My volunteer work is like tossing a stone in water... it has some ripples, sure, but Random Acts is like dropping the fucking moon in the ocean. Such a simple, pure concept could change the world.